Music 'best enjoyed indoors'

17-07-12

THE UK’s festival industry is reeling from a new study which concludes that music listeners reach the peaks of aural pleasure when warm and dry.

Not acoustic mud

The revelation follows a weekend of Somme-like conditions at UK festivals, which saw families at a boutique event in Kent trapped in a folk tent and forced to listen to public school girls singing about forests until emergency services could cut through the canvas.

Researchers at the Institute for Studies played 1,000 people music in a range of environments, from leather armchairs to a disused battery-chicken shed full of corpses and slurry, designed to simulate the dance tent at any large festival.

They found that bands sound better pre-recorded, that being drenched and knee-deep in faeces detracts from the overall listening experience, and that not being able to see anyone in a ‘funky hat’ releases a flood of dopamine into the brain.

Professor Henry Brubaker of the Institute for Studies said: “Being at home on your own sofa drinking gin and tonic from an actual glass is more conducive to enjoying music than being shoved around by brain-dead bikers in a massive ditch.

“The advantages of seeing a band live, for example an extended guitar solo, are usually outweighed by the disadvantages, for example an extended drum solo.”

Festival organisers have subsequently announced that all festivals will be cancelled and have pledged funding to help victims of outdoor music.

Plasterer Tom Booker said: “I went to T In The Park to see the Kaiser Chiefs, who were doing one of those nostalgia tours where they play their classic song I Predict A Riot in full, and it was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life.

“I still get flashbacks and I’ll be in therapy for the next ten years. But, thank God, at least nobody else will have to see the horrors I’ve seen.”